Zucchini and Organic Tomato Caponata

As a young girl, I traveled and stay in Sardinia, and Milan, Italy, speaking the language, interacting with everyone, and really getting to learn how to tweak my cuisine preparatory skills. I stayed with a family that was a friend of my parents and I did not know a soul. I had to speak to learn and learn to speak. One way to really pick up a culture and the ‘tongue’ fast is to interact during dinner preparation. At night as Paola (my host) would prepare dinner, I stepped in with her daughter and gave a helping hand. The commands flew, I listened, learned and soon began taking on the food prep at night. Enjoying what I was learning, more of my strong Italian heritage, I began my affection with a lifelong passion of preparing food and delighting in Italian-Styled cuisine. This is my story of being a foodie, traveling the world and preparing one of my favorite Zucchini and Organic Tomato Caponata dishes that is sure to please any household that loves their vegetables.

Gastronomy of Italian Food

The gastronomy of Italian food is one of my favorites, perhaps it is because I am Italian, and strongly bound to the heritage and culture. Perhaps the influence of my trips and time spent in Italy both married and unmarried have provided me a wealthy treasure box of Italian Cuisine Recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation? Whatever the reason, I am compelled to share my recipes, my warm, well-cultivated love of recipes with you!

The one vegetable that consistently challenges my culinary skills is a Zucchini. It seems that each Zucchini is defined as it’s own, and no two are exactly the same. The water consistency of a zucchini is largely a reason that many recipes fail, while other wildly succeed. It’s a crap shoot what kind of zucchini you might be buying when you buy it at the market, but it’s well worth the attempt.

Today I have created a sensational plate that is sure to please anyone that loves a masterful vegetable dish that can be used both as a side or a main meal. Here are is the starting point, cutting, the zucchini into chunks, then cubing into bite size pieces which ensures that all the pieces will be evenly cooked

Shout out to Collage.Com for my killer Cutting board!

It’s time to cut up all the other ingredients and get cooking! Here are the items you will need to create this delicacy.

METHOD

Place skillet on the stove, adding olive oil and onion.
Cook Onion and Garlic until Onion is a bit more translucent, then add in Zucchini.
Gradually add in Organic Diced Tomatoes and the juice in the can.
Allow The Juice and waters to cook out so that this is not a watery dish, but do stir.
Once water has disappeared, serve on a dish, sprinkled with a Romano Cheese To Taste.
Dress top of Caponata Mixture with chopped Arugula or Escarole
Serve warm or cool.

This will take you about 25 minutes to cook for the single batch described and you do want to make sure that all the liquid has evaporated for the best possible taste. Do watch that the bottom does not char, keeping the heat at a low to medium low heat level when cooking.

Do consistently mix this while cooking to ensure that all parts get cooked evenly as there is nothing worse than biting into an uncooked zucchini piece in this recipe. I found my organic diced tomatoes at Costco and I buy them by the case.

You can serve this atop pasta, with chunks of crusty bread as a main meal, or as a side dish. I personally just load up a plate, sins carbs and enjoy. The plate is very LCHF friendly and I pairs well with a Chianti(wink, wink).

Yum! This dish looks fantastic. I love finding meatless entrees, so thank you for sharing this recipe. I think I would eat it like you, and serve it to the rest of the family with pasta. I love that cutting board, by the way. So cute!Shann Eva recently posted..No Costumes Allowed

Think I have shared that I do not like most vegetables and this is one but, the way you have presented it here, you could trick me into at least trying it! 🙂Claudette recently posted..4 Natural Foods You Want To Eat

Well it sounds like you got your culinary expertese in the best place ever. Its hard to immerse yourself into a different culture/language, but you are proof that you can do it and now you have all of what you learned behind you and it can help you with your future endeavers.Heather recently posted..Getting Ready For Mom’s Night Out!